Coal Companies are People Too

Property developers aren't the only ones with a worrying influence on the
NSW Government, writes Chris Doran

The Wollongong developers' donations scandal has laid bare one of the
ugliest realities of our political system: the corrosive influence of
corporations on government decision making.

The link between property developers' donations to NSW Labor, and the
resulting tide of approvals, is now so blatantly corrupt that it has forced
the Premier to call for a ban on all donations (http://www.newmatilda.com/2008/04/09/whats-with-back-flip).
But the problem is hardly limited to property developers. Equally dominant -
and arguably much more damaging both to democracy and life as we know it -
is the coal industry's lock on not only the Iemma Government, but the
Australian political system in general.

The real issue is the influence of large corporations on our democratic
system. The modern corporation is such a behemoth of wealth and power that
ordinary citizens cannot hope to compete with it. There is no such thing as
a level playing field when corporations have direct and protected access to
government decision making in a way that ordinary citizens do not.

They have this access because of a centuries old British common law
provision called corporate personhood, which recognises corporations as
having the same legal entitlements as natural persons (citizens). Originally
constructed to protect corporations established by the monarchy, corporate
personhood is what allows corporations to give donations to political
parties, and to lobby on or behalf of legislation, just as natural persons
are allowed to.

Similarly, just as there are no limits on how much wealth or property a
natural person can possess, corporate personhood guarantees that there are
no limits on corporations in terms of their size, or the amount of property
they are able to acquire. BHP Billiton is therefore allowed to take over
other mining giants like WMC and Rio Tinto and hence increase its size,
wealth, power and political influence.

Multinational corporations are now such giants of wealth and power that 95
of the world's 150 largest economic entities are corporations, versus 55
countries. The fossil fuel industry is arguably the most powerful on earth.
It certainly is the most powerful in New South Wales, judging by the number
of coal related projects that continue to be approved by the Iemma
Government.

Australians recognise that corporations have too much power. In a
significant 2003 poll, over half agreed that Federal Parliament was run
entirely, or at least mostly, for the benefit of big business. Eighteen
months ago 70 per cent agreed that government and big business are in bed
with each other to ignore climate change.

Banning political donations will not fix the problem of corporate influence.
In the United States, corporations are banned from giving campaign
contributions. But like Australia, corporations are recognised in the US as
having the same rights as people, and as a result have found legal
loopholes. Corporations give millions of dollars to the Democrats and
Republicans via Political Action Committees. Given the close ties of the NSW
Labor Party to corporate Australia (in particular property developers and
coal miners), it's a safe bet there will also be loopholes in any NSW
legislation. There will be loopholes because corporations exist exclusively
for one purpose: profit. They will spend millions (which incidentally they
will be able to write off as a business expense) figuring out, creating, and
then exploiting, these loopholes.

That's why a ban on donations should be viewed as an important first step,
and not a solution in and of itself. Ultimately corporate political
influence can only be addressed by removing corporate access to the
political system. As long as our legal system recognises corporations as
being entitled to the same privileges and protections as flesh and blood
human citizens, these corporate excesses will continue.

Banning donations does not address other areas of corporate influence like
lobbying, funding of think tanks and political front groups, or financing
ads to influence policy debates - like the Minerals Council's "Life Brought
to You By Mining" campaign. (http://www.newmatilda.com/2007/04/04/culture-jamming.-brought-you-mining)
These are all examples of how corporate personhood allows
corporations to influence crucial decisions in ways that ordinary citizens
cannot possibly compete with.

These, as well as donations, have allowed the carbon industry to block any
meaningful engagement in Australia taking action on climate change until the
Rudd Government finally ratified the Kyoto Protocol. But Kyoto is not
enough. Scientific consensus is now calling for emissions to peak globally
by 2015 - seven years from now.

Coal is the number one contributor to climate change globally, and is the
primary reason that Australia is the world's biggest per capita
emitter of greenhouse gases (http://www.carbonplanet.com/country_emissions). Yet the Iemma Government continues to facilitate the expansion of coal mining in NSW. And it has substantially reduced the public's say in the approvals process of these new mines and related infrastructure, by pre-approving many of them as major projects. In the last
year it has approved the Moolarben and Anvil Hill mines, both controversial and both ecologically sensitive, and both huge in terms of greenhouse emissions.

It, along with Federal Labor, is heavily subsidising clean coal technology,
which at the very earliest *might* be available by 2020 - way too late. And
Iemma is set on giving more power to the coal industry by privatising
electricity generation.

In his recent book Supercapitalism (http://www.amazon.com/Supercapitalism-Transformation-Business-Democracy-...), former US Clinton Administration Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has
called for the end of corporate personhood as a crucial starting point to
establish democratic control over corporate excess. Throughout the US,
citizens are challenging corporate power and the legal concept of corporate
personhood. In Humboldt County (http://www.duhc.org/) in northern
California, citizens have passed a referendum overturning corporate
personhood by banning corporate access to the local political system. Non
local corporations are now prohibited from giving campaign contributions,
from lobbying, from advertising on social issues, and from funding political
front groups.

Corporations are supposed to be regulated by the representatives we elect,
not the other way around. Entities established exclusively for the purpose
of generating profit via the burning of fossil fuels should not have a
dominant political voice regarding crucial decisions impacting society.

Because it is society's - and the planet's - actual survival that is now at
stake.